


Please

by Nemoinis



Category: Backstreet Boys, NSYNC
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Crossover Pairings, M/M, Private School
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-19 16:12:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4752692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemoinis/pseuds/Nemoinis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joey had been pretty sure his mother was joking when she threatened to send him to boarding school after the first two incidents with Kelly. He was absolutely sure the third time shouldn’t count because it wasn’t with Kelly, but Greg. He was much less sure as he watched out the window at the back of his parent’s car disappearing down the long winding driveway of his new school.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Please

**Author's Note:**

> I was vague about ages, but everyone is underage in the beginning of this story. 
> 
> Moving everything to AO3. This story was published as part of the 2002 Don We Now Our Gay Apparel Secret Santa.

Joey had been pretty sure his mother was joking when she threatened to send him to boarding school after the first two incidents with Kelly. He was absolutely sure the third time shouldn’t count because it wasn’t with Kelly, but Greg. He was much less sure as he watched out the window at the back of his parent’s car disappearing down the long winding driveway of his new school. 

“This is gonna be great,” Justin said from behind him. “We’ve been hoping for another roommate, I mean, JC’s a great great guy and all, but he’s a mess and he’s always sleeping so we have to be quiet all the time. Oh, he chews on stuff too, so, like, hide your pencils. I keep them between my mattresses but they break really easily and-“ 

Joey stopped listening, thinking he already knew why JC slept all the time; he’d only been with Justin for an hour and was already exhausted. The kid ran absolutely non-stop. 

“-Nick has swimming, so you’ll meet him at dinner, oh, and JC, too. Down the main stairs and to the left.”

‘JC's down the main stairs?’ he thought, trying to figure out what Justin was talking about. 

“I’ve got choir so I’ll be back later. That’s your bed by the -,” and Joey blinked in the suddenly empty room. 

He tugged halfheartedly on one of his suitcases and took a long look around. Each corner of the room held a matching bed and dresser, as well as a desk with a bulletin board hanging on a boring white wall. 

Justin’s bed, based on the tidy collection of sports pictures hanging on the bulletin board, was closest to the door. The blankets were tucked with military perfection except for a small bump up near the pillowcase. Pencils, Joey thought and almost smiled. A magazine lay on the dresser next to a half finished pack of gum and a framed picture of a younger Justin being hugged by a woman. 

The bed to his left was just as neat and tidy but the board above the desk held a haphazard array of half-finished sketches and a few pictures that had been carefully cut from magazines. The nightstand had a journal and some pencils with their erasers chewed off. JC, he thought. 

Nick’s bed was the same, but had a small stuffed shark next to the pillow and his nightstand had a fishbowl with two goldfish. Tacked to the board were underwater seascapes. 

Joey dropped his suitcase on the bed next to JC's. The mattress was firm and there was only one lumpy pillow. Not like his own room at home that had two fat goose down pillows with flannel sheets that smelled like oregano and 3 mismatched blankets. One that had a hole at the bottom where his big toe fit snugly. His bed also had a deep dent, right in the middle, that was shaped to him perfectly and he didn’t have roommates there and his bedroom wasn’t 55 miles from the nearest bus stop and most importantly, it wasn’t in a strange school, in an unfamiliar city, half a country away from his family. 

He curled around the pillow that wasn’t really his and pretended not to cry.

**

"Please," Nick whispers and Joey can’t say no. 

It’s such a small thing really; a small gift for the birthday they both share and Joey's easy to convince. He’s even easier still to be pull down, to feel the thin strength of Nick's hands tangle in his shirt. Lips soft and dry against Joey's; hesitant in their welcome, shy in their seduction. It makes him feel chaste, Joey thinks and he presses back firmly for the barest second. Something in his belly twists as Nick shivers, tries to push closer. Joey brushes his hand against the silky skin of Nick's cheek before pulling away. 

The faint gleam of light from under the door catches the shine in Nick’s eyes. Distant laughter sounds and Joey smiles, buzzed and happy as he pushes Nick gently towards the door. “We’re missing our party, birthday boy,” he says. Nick just watches him leave. 

In the morning, when the light burns his eyes, Joey thinks that it might have been a dream. 

**

It’s mostly like public school, except that he only gets to go home once a month and there aren’t any girls. His classes are smaller than normal but he’s learning a lot and if he has a problem with question #43 on the English quiz, he always someone else to ask. 

Justin was right, Joey learned, about JC. He did sleep all the time and he was kinda boring and he chewed on pencils like a demented beaver. When he wasn’t sleeping he’d be sitting at his desk writing frantically into his journal or drawing complicated designs in a sketchpad, worrying the end of the pencil to stub whenever he paused. “He wants to be an architect,” Justin told him late one night while they studied, “but he’s not very good with math.” Joey looked at all the beautiful sketches that JC had done of arched doorways and intricate iron scrollwork and thought that he’d be happy to live in a house that JC designed. 

Justin wasn’t really a bad kid either, just young. He tended to wind down early and start late since he didn’t really get going until after breakfast. He was obsessively tidy and re-ironed his shirt when took it off at night and did all his laundry every Saturday morning and carefully pressed his undershirts. His pants all had crisp creases and perfect cuffs and he folded his underwear, which Joey thought was strange. He said he was going to be a “Superstar” when Joey asked. 

Nick, it turned out, shared Joey’s birthday, only he was two years younger. He was Justin’s best friend and cute as well, with a shy, goofy grin and wire-rim glasses that constantly slid down his nose. He liked to swim and it was like living with a wet dog; from the slippery trails on the floor, damp towels on his bed, to the impromptu showers when Nick would laugh and shake his wet hair. He spent weekends in nothing but his swimsuit and Joey mostly thought he was too skinny until he put his uniform on. Then he tried hard not to stare at the small sliver of skin low on Nick’s back that was exposed when he would tack another picture to his bulletin board, even though he’d seen the same span of flesh a million times before. 

**

"Please," Nick says and Joey wants to say no. Memories slip through half shadows of the year before and he can feel the differences that he hadn’t seen though Nick had been right there. The change in the hands that don’t clutch, the way Joey no longer has to lean down. Just tilts his head and there they are again, mouths barely touching. Familiar, Joey knows, comfortable, until Nick licks at him, flicks the tip of his tongue against the swell of Joey's bottom lip. Swallows the gasp in the heat of his own mouth and then he’s pushing slowly into Joey. 

Cherry sweet flavor coats his tongue as Nick leisurely - curiously - maps his mouth, coaxes his tongue to follow his. The surge is there again, that something in the pit in his stomach, but this time it makes Joey want to push back until Nick can’t breathe. Until what Joey tastes is no longer candied but metallic and brutal. God, Nick’s skin is still so smooth under Joey's fingers. And Joey is so very, very hungry. 

Joey does push then, but only away. Then Nick’s looking at him with fever bright eyes, with lips wet and swollen, like an unfurled rose. 

He shut the door carefully behind him. 

**

Nick outgrew two uniforms that year; he was suddenly too long, too wide. Justin shot up another inch and they spent all their time wrestling on the floor and Joey hated that he couldn’t help but watch the way they tumbled about like puppies. Sometimes they pulled him in and it was hard to think about how young they both were, when they were stretched out beneath him or on top of him, grinning with delight when they held him down. 

He decided he needed a boyfriend and started dating one of JC's friends, a guy named Lance. He was short and blonde and had a dry wit that didn’t really match the fact he was a science nerd. But he was fantastic in bed; plucking out whatever inhibitions that Joey had left. They got caught once, when Nick and Justin came back early from band practice. Justin screamed like a girl when he saw them; Nick just curled up in bed and said he had a stomachache. 

Joey didn’t feel guilty because there really wasn't any reason he should. 

JC started taking Eastern Philosophy because he had a crush on Kevin, the teacher’s assistant; Joey had to disconnect all the smoke detectors because JC kept lighting candles and incense and when Joey woke up one morning with Buddha melting on a hotplate, he decided he’d had enough. He took JC to confession and he returned pale and shaking because they were all going to hell. After that, he spent his nights sitting quietly and counting their sins. Joey wasn’t sure which was worse. 

By mid-term though, JC had decided he was really just ‘spiritual’ and that celibacy was the new way to enlightenment. He spent all his time jerking off. 

“Kevin got engaged,” Lance offered one night, while they were studying and trying to ignore JC finding wisdom in his bed. 

**

“Please,” Nick demands and Joey says no. But it doesn’t matter because Nick takes anyway. And Joey lets him. No need to catalog the changes this time because Joey paid attention in the time between. Look up now, wraps his own hands in Nick’s lapels and it’s better than ever before, from the way the younger man’s lips open his with authority to the subtle play of his tongue against Joey’s. 

He kneads at Joey's shoulders and Joey slides his hands down the front of Nick’s shirt. Slips under his jacket, beneath his shirt. All long clean lines and muscles that bunch and slide beneath skin as Nick trembles like a skittish thoroughbred under Joey's roving hands. 

“Shhh,” Joey murmurs, “easy,” and it’s hard not to wonder why he hasn’t done this before. Why he hasn’t pushed Nick down on the softness of his bed and pulled these sweet little noises from his lips, or watched the full-bodied shivers that wrack him now. 

His belly is curved and jerks under Joey's hand as he circles Nick’s navel, follows the slight trail down. Hotwethard velvet under his fingertips and Joey thinks he could write music to the melody Nick is singing into his mouth. 

Nick’s hands squeeze, dig hard into his shoulders and it’s good. 

Stroke once, twice and he says Joey's name. A third and his breath gives a little hitch on the j sound and he’s arching and there’s a burning heat on Joey's wrist. Frantic gasps against Joey's neck, but Joey still pulls away. Leaves Nick stranded in the middle of the room. 

Joey does not say Nick’s name when he comes later, but only because Lance’s dick is in his mouth. 

**

JC graduated with honors and nobody’s sure how he did it. He gave a speech to the graduating class that absolutely no one understood and the mic gave out halfway through. He got a standing ovation when it came back on in the middle of JC offering to give the sound guy a blowjob that would make his toes curl. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he declared loudly into the mic and the ceremony was pretty much over after that. 

Lance broke up with Joey the next day because he was “unavailable emotionally, but we can still be friends,” and they were. In fact, it was pretty much the same as always, except that Lance kept his clothes on. He’d been accepted into NASA’s college program so he spent a lot of time looking up at the night sky. “Someday,” he would say wistfully. 

Nick no longer asked for help with his homework but was helping them instead. He was majoring in math theory and spent Wednesday nights at Marlowe University, tutoring students twice his age. At night, he would lean over Joey, slender fingers pointing out mistakes in Joey’s calculations. Joey ignored the way the light reflected his own face on Nick’s glasses and took a lot of notes. Surprisingly, he got a B+ in calculus. 

Justin played forward on the Jr. Varsity basketball team; said he was going to be the next Michael Jordan and Joey thought that he might be right. He and Nick didn’t hang out as much anymore but sometimes Joey would find them tangled on the floor, laughing. 

Joey got accepted to Julliard and he wondered what that would be like. New people to meet and new friends to make and it would never be like this again. 

**

“Please,” Nick should say, but he doesn’t. Instead the lights blind Joey where he stands and this isn’t what it’s supposed to be like. Nick stood at the door watching him. 

“I guess this is it,” Nick offers. 

Joey says nothing because he doesn’t know this script. Doesn’t know his part. 

“Four years,” Nick says quietly, “and I don’t even know…” Too many ways to end that sentence. ‘If you like me. If you care. What you’re doing. What I’m doing.’ Endless tumbling through Joey's head like a rockslide. 

“I wanted to see you this time,” and he’s so close. In that moment Nick looks older than his age. Like he’s carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, because he had no one to help. Because Joey never shoulders his own half of the burden. There are tiny creases between Nick’s brows, the way he no longer looks half wild and ready to bolt. How he stands steady and tame in the leads Joey harnessed him with so long ago. 

And still Joey stands silent. Because he can’t tell him, doesn’t know how to say the words that fill him up. So he closes his eyes, waits for Nick’s touch. Something to take with him when he goes. Joey can smell him, like pepper and sugar when Nick leans close. Then the fleeting heat of his mouth touches his again, just like the first time. There’s the gentle swell of his breath against Joey's face. 

In the end, his skin is hotter than Joey ever imagined. He never allowed himself to think of the way Nick’s body would cling to his, how it would welcome the intrusion and the way his hips would cradle Joey's. Or the way Nick’s back would arch or the long line of his throat when he throws his head back. 

And his voice, the sharp splintering cries, made as Joey presses himself slowly into Nicks’ body or the harsh pants that Nick tries to stifle as he curls over him. The wide startled eyes and hardsharppain bite on Joey's shoulder when Nick comes. 

“I love you,” Nick whispers, when dawn starts to glow. 

**

Joey stretched and reached for him again, wanted to see the way the sunlight touched his skin, to tell Nick the things that broke free in the middle of the night and are flooding his heart and mouth. 

But Nick is standing at the door, one hand on the knob. 

“Please,” Joey said. Because that’s all that ever had to be said. He knows that now. 

Nick's smile is blinding.


End file.
